Palm Springs Tram: Snow Soothsayers Wanted

Predict when that first frosty inch'll fall at Mountain Station and win a ride.

By Alysia Gray Painter •Published September 29, 2017•Updated on October 1, 2017 at 12:55 pm

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

IF IT'S THE START OF OCTOBER, you're probably engaged in a few activities, activities that may include but are not limited to the purchasing of tiny candy bars and plastic pumpkins, the decorating of front doors with various paper skeletons, and the designing of fall centerpieces, the kind that have plenty of squashes and colorful leaves. But if you're a winter fan, and you're already starting to glance past Halloween to the chillier months of November and December, then you likely know of a certain contest that happens each year at the beginning of October. It deals with snow, but snow as related to a town we don't normally associate with the frosty stuff: Palm Springs. No, snowfall isn't predicted for Swimming Pool Central this winter, but it will absolutely fall atop nearby Mt. San Jacinto, which is where the...

PALM SPRINGS AERIAL TRAMWAY... comes in. The historic tram, being a tram, rises several thousand feet on its airy journey, which means that, come the chillier time of year, it will eventually reach the snowline. And its final terminus up the huge hillside, Mountain Station? Snow will accumulate there, too, and sooner than might be believed. So your task, should you choose to join the contest, is this: Guess the 2017 date when "the first measurable inch of snow" falls at Mountain Station, which sits at 8,516 feet. We say "2017" because it will happen long before January; the 2016 first-inch-of-snow date was Nov. 21. But don't dawdle: Your entry will need to be among the first ten entries predicting the correct date to be chosen. And what do you win, if you pick the right date and you're one of the first ten entries in?

A RIDE ON THE TRAM, of course, for four, plus "a special Tram gift memento." The rules? You can't send in your postcard before Oct. 1, 2017, so hold your horses, tram fans. Your postcard — no email entries are allowed — should be postmarked after the first day of October. Good? Cool? Very cool, as in snow at Mountain Station? Read over everything at the tram's site, including the address where you'll need to send your postcard, and get to dreaming of scarf-wearing days near the tippy-top of majestic Mt. San Jacinto.